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Christmas Eve Dinner – Dos Sucres

We enjoyed a delightful Christmas Eve tasting menu at Dos Sucres restaurant in Cuenca. There were eight courses with four pairings (two wines, one beer and, interestingly, mead). Both the food and the service were first rate, as were the classic Christmas songs that filled the restaurant.

I have discussed Dos Sucres before, so I will just let the descriptions of each course tell the story.

The dinner opened with crisped chicken skin in a rich, delicious chicken broth reduction. The dish was served with a moist towel, but no cutlery and we were invited to eat with our fingers. This was a fun introduction to the meal as it helped to “break the ice” and make everyone feel at home. A lot of flavor, especially in the reduction. Too bad there was not any bread to mop up the remaining broth! This and the next course were paired with Cenapa winery’s Famiglia Reserva Carmenere. The red wine paired well with the big flavors of the first and second dishes.

The second course was just as original as the first. Beef slow cooked for 60 hours with tomato and rosemary was completely encased in a clarified tomato “ravioli”. The beef was tender and flavorful, as would be expected from the long cooking. The ravioli, a bit firmer than traditional pasta, added a mild, but pronounced, tomato taste.

Gnocchis made from white corn (mote) with blue corn flour and a mote-tocte nut sauce. The flavors were more subtle than the first two dishes, but very enjoyable. I understand that mixing mote corn with tocte nuts is a traditional Ecuadoran snack when the nuts are in season. Tocte nuts, also called Andean walnuts, are not often used due to the thick shell, which makes then difficult to open. I can personally attest to this as we once bought some in a market. They were a real bear to open. The wine pairing for the third and fourth dishes was Marques de Riscal rioja.

Pork bao sandwich with pickled onions for the fourth course. The shredded pork was tender (after 12 hours sous-vide cooking) and the onions added just the right accent. The steamed bun was tender and very well prepared.

Another very creative dish. A palate cleanser with dilute mead and lime zest with cochineal extract added at table for a dramatic flair. The mead (diluted honey wine) was, by itself, too sweet while the lime zest alone was too bitter, but together they produced a well blended flavor that was light and refreshing.

Above, adding a cochineal extract to a mead/lime zest mix at table side.

Smoked, roasted turkey with a cherry sauce, a more traditional main course, with risotto and peas. The turkey was tender and juicy and was paired with a lager beer, which went very well with the smoked flavor.

Our first dessert course. A mix of chocolate ice cream and chocolate-mango ice cream with banana puree, sort of a deconstructed banana split. The two little dots were pureed green mango, which added a sour counterpoint to the sweet ice creams. The dessert courses were paired with mead.

The final dish was a play on the classic Ecuadoran miel de higos con queso, or fig honey with cheese. The dish had two types of mild white cheese, a fig foam, lemon-honey foams and a rich, thick, sweet fig sauce. A very good dish and a good ending to our meal.

Summary

We very much enjoyed our Christmas Eve dinner. The dishes, all good, were a nice mix of traditional and modern and we are looking forward to the next tasting menu at Dos Sucres.